“The more we look into the history of Andover the more we feel how thoroughly it is a characteristic New England town. If I wanted to give a foreigner some clear idea of what that excellent institution a New England town really is, in its history and in its character, in its enterprise and its sobriety, in its godliness and its manliness, I should be sure that I could do it if I could make him perfectly familiar with the past and the present of Andover.”
JAMES OTIS, JR.
BY REV. H. HEWITT.
Goethe’s famous saying, that “Talent forms itself in solitude; character, in the stream of life,”[G] has often found striking exemplification both in the narrow sphere of individual existence, and on the broader and more conspicuous stage of national affairs; but perhaps the truth it contains has seldom been more amply illustrated than during the stormy days of the American Revolution. Great political convulsions sift peoples as the wind sifts the wheat on the summer threshing-floor, bringing into prominence their best as well as their worst features. They furnish occasion for the development and display of all that is noblest in mankind, and they offer equal scope and opportunity to all the baser susceptibilities and passions of our nature. They furnish a broader platform on which to act, and originate more exciting topics to occupy and elevate the mind, than are afforded by an orderly and undisturbed condition of society; and they are certainly better fitted to create that energy of will and heroism of purpose without which nothing noble, beneficent, and lasting can ever be accomplished.
Never, perhaps, has this effect been produced in a more impressive manner, or to a fuller extent, than during the anxious years when the American colonies were slowly feeling and fighting their way to the status of an independent nation. A new order of manhood appeared, shaped by the dangers and difficulties of the time. The crisis called for men of courage and capacity, of wise council, of prompt and decisive action, and these men were forthcoming, as if providentially prepared for the hour and the occasion. Of these, one of the earliest on the scene, and, for a time, one of the most eloquent and able of the popular leaders, was James Otis, Junior. Though, in consequence of the sad affliction that darkened and distressed his later days, his labors in the cause of American independence were prematurely closed, and he was not permitted to share in the consummation of the conflict in which he had played so prominent, and spirited, and successful a part, he still deserves to be remembered with gratitude and affection by the nation, now grown big, at whose birth he so nobly played the part of midwife. James Otis was born at Great Marshes, now known as West Barnstable, February 5, 1725 (old style, February 5, 1724). His ancestor, John Otis, came from England about the year 1657, and settled in the town of Hingham. The family was from the first distinguished by public spirit, and by aptitude for places of trust and responsibility in the public service. Besides the important offices of Judge of the Common Pleas and Judge of Probate, John Otis had the honor of holding a seat in the Council of the Province for more than twenty years. His son, James Otis, born 1702, stood equally prominent in his public capacity, being a distinguished member of the Bar, an officer of the Militia, a Justice of the Common Pleas and of Probate, and a Councillor of the Province. He married Mary Allyne, by whom he had a large family, James, the subject of this sketch, being the eldest and most celebrated. Samuel Allyne, the youngest of the thirteen children, served for some time as secretary of the Senate of the United States. The eldest daughter, Mercy, displayed an aptitude for politics and literature, in which she acquired considerable reputation in those unquiet and exciting days, vigorously indorsing and seconding the action of her brother, and her husband, James Warren, in the Provincial Council. She was the anonymous author of “The Group,” a stinging political satire, published in 1775, and in 1805 she produced a “History of the American Revolution.”
Of the habits, character, and status of Otis, as a student at Harvard, whither he went in his fourteenth year, little is known, except what has descended to us in the shape of anecdote, such as the story of his playing the violin for a small party of young friends on one occasion, and suddenly stopping the dance by dropping the instrument, and exclaiming, “So fiddled Orpheus, and so danced the brutes.” He, however, managed to graduate with honors in 1743, and to carry off his Arts degree in 1746. About two years after leaving college he commenced the study of the law in the office of Jeremiah Gridley, a lawyer of some repute, who, later on, as Attorney-General, defended the famous “apple of discord,” the “Writs of Assistance,” which Otis so brilliantly and successfully impeached. He resided for a short period, 1748-9, in the town of Plymouth; but the place of Pilgrim fame was at that time too slow and dull a place for the quick and active mind and ardent and ambitious temper of the rising young lawyer, and he removed to Boston, soon to be absorbed with the duties and difficulties of a large and lucrative practice, and esteemed and admired as one of the brightest ornaments of his profession. Nor was the public confidence in him misplaced, or his popularity without warrant. Governor Hutchinson, who knew him only in the capacity of a powerful personal and political opponent, was yet obliged to yield homage to his public and professional virtues, frankly declaring that “He never knew fairer or more noble conduct in a pleader than in Otis; that he always defended his causes solely on their broad and substantial foundations.” Among other stories and items of fact put forth in evidence of his contempt of the pettifogging and professional lying so common in these degenerate days, is the following: Being engaged on one occasion to recover the amount of a bill which was alleged by the defendant to have been paid, he discovered, quite accidentally, among his client’s papers, as the trial was proceeding, a receipt in full for the demand before the court. The paper in question had fallen into his client’s hands in some way or another, and he was villanously using this advantage to wrong his neighbor. As soon as Otis detected the trick his indignation burst forth like a scorching flame, “You are a pretty rascal!” he said; “there is a receipt for the very demand now before the court.”
Otis’ happiness, however, such as it was, lay outside his home. His marriage with Ruth Cunningham, which took place in 1755, was far from being happy. Incompatibility of temper, and radical and stubborn differences in political principle and sentiment, were the main ingredients in the chalice of bitterness and woe which both, doubtless, helped to fill. His only son, a youth of promise, entered the navy as midshipman, and died at eighteen. His eldest daughter, Elizabeth, married a loyalist, Captain Brown, who was wounded at Bunker Hill,—an alliance that much distressed him. The sad fortune of his second daughter, Mary, was another source of grief. She had married Benjamin Lincoln, eldest son of General Lincoln, who received the sword of General Cornwallis at the surrender of Yorktown,—a young lawyer of considerable promise; but he died at twenty-eight.
It is necessary to remember that in the great drama of the Revolution, Otis was only one of many distinguished actors, and that, in order to appreciate the part he played so well, we shall require to give a brief and rapid sketch of the political situation at the time. The sudden assertion of the spirit of liberty, which the British Parliament and the Provincial Legislature, acting under its direction and control, strove to check and subdue, was the awakening of the colonial communities, not simply to a consciousness of their political rights, but, also, of a new-born power to maintain and defend them. During the first hundred years of colonial history King and Parliament, occupied with affairs of an absorbing character at home, knew little, and cared even less, about the fate and fortunes of the men and women, who, for the sake of conscience and religious freedom, had left the land of their birth and best affection, and were engaged in a heroic contest with nature, on a wild, desolate, and distant coast. The early colonists were left to a liberty almost as unfettered as the wild animals and savage tribes whom they dislodged from their native forests. When, however, the infant communities had grown strong and prosperous, and had initiated a system of commerce which bade fair to become expansive and lucrative, they at once attracted the attention of the State authorities in the land of their origin. When the conflict with Parliament began, the rights and immunities claimed by the American colonies, were not matters of statute and charter. The prescriptive right, which is founded in long-established custom and usage, rather than in positive enactment, was the ground of resistance to the encroachments of the Provincial Executive. When James Otis, in pleading against the “Writs of Assistance,” said, “Taxation without representation is tyranny,” he stated a great political principle; he indicated the great palladium of popular liberty; but deeper than that principle, in the hearts of the colonists, lay the sense of uneasiness at the prospect of having the privileges of one hundred and fifty years in any way compromised, disturbed, or imperilled. This was the spirit of Franklin, in his “Hints for a Reply to the Protest of the Lords against the Repeal of the Stamp Act:” “I will freely spend nineteen shillings in the pound,” said he, “to defend my right of giving or refusing the other shilling; and, after all, if I cannot defend that right, I can retire cheerfully with my little family into the boundless woods of America, which are sure to afford freedom and subsistence to any man who can bait a hook or pull a trigger.” This was the spirit of Otis when he complained that Parliament regarded the British colonies in America rather as “a parcel of small, insignificant conquered islands, than as very extensive settlement on the continent,” with a future of unlimited development in store. This, too, was the spirit of Hawley, when, with a boldness outstripping that of Otis himself, he said, “The Parliament of Great Britain has no right to legislate for us.” The latter sentence is memorable as being the first instance in which the power of the British Parliament was distinctly denied in a colonial legislature.